>> good morning everyone. it's a great time of the year to unveil-- happy new year actually. my name is claudine cheng. i'm speaking as a past president of oca, organization of chinese americans. every year is special; this year is specifically more special because historically the first

year honoring chinese heritage was in 1993, this is the twentieth year anniversary of that; we are proud and happy that the happy new year series is continuing -- by the united states postal service. oca is a national organization 20 years ago urge the postal service to issue a series of stamps to honor the contributions of chinese americans and we have the support of many local organizations, the chinese chamber of commerce, the chinese consolidated benevolent associations and many other national organizations and national leaders that joined asking the post office to consider doing that. we see the stamp as an important part

of the american cultural heritage; chinese-americans are a big part of it. this is a special year, our twentieth year. i would like to introduce our mayor, ed lee, this is his press conference. mayor lee has been to many, many if not all of the -- in san francisco. in as many capacities as a public official in san francisco. mayor lee? >> thank you caludine for your work. from the first time when you were in dc getting us excited about our national stamp; really our national culture could be reflected for everybody in america. this is a wonderful opportunity yet again and i know this is the sixth stamp?

sixth in the second series. i'm glad to be joined the board president david chiu, our new supervisor norman yee district 7, and rod sengera postmaster general for the san francisco bay area. i see the wonderful beautiful designs that ken mack has for our stamp,a reflection of our cultural heritage. i want to thank the representatives of chinese companies and many others witnessing this to unveil this again. we are getting ready for the new year. as people know we are finishing up on what i think is one of the most exciting years that we have had with the year of the dragon. you know as well as i do that so many things happened,

somewhat miraculously whether the world series or on our way to perhaps a super bowl, and even the economic recovery. i kind of thing from our own culture that it had something to do with the alignment of some great fantastic events that we could not control but that came together. and for welcoming in this new year we call it the year of the serpent but some of us will refer to as as a year of the many dragon. of course i want to recognize carmen chu hao district 4 supervisor as well; she has been a strong leader helping us promote the new year's as well of course taking care of her district, working as a wonderful supervisor. i am excited about this new year too because it has an

opportunity to unveil many of our cultural aspirations in the city of san francisco. it has been 160 years, and we know our history well. my ascension to this office has been one of those things that people still consider me pretty special so much special not because of me but because of our community. this tab will have international status. gobs of people will want to have it, reflective of not only our history but if i go to washington dc tomorrow we will have an opportunity to talk with the rest of the mayors across the country is to how to celebrate new year's. this would be another example.

want to congratulate again claudine and the whole team, postmaster general, is leadership is always been important. and the public service that she does not only in delivering the mail and postal service but reflective of the stamp and the u.s. postal service office that we get this opportunity to have a national platform on which our culture affinities can be displayed. happy new year. (chinese) thank you mayor lee. every year the united states postal service in washington dc receives many applications for subject matter to be reflected on a postal stamp. we really want to thank the poster service committee for selecting every year for the happy new year stamp, or the lunar year thing, to be part of the commemorative stamp program. with us today is seven cisco

postmaster rog cingara (sounds like). >> thank you for that kind introduction. i want to thank you for being with us today and for your support of the united states postal service. i know you have important business in washington to attend to. something about an inauguration. i really appreciate your taking the time out here today and inviting us us to city hall and being part of the celebration. thank you claudine. as always your support and your assistance have been instrumental and it is very much appreciated. thank very much. and thank you all for joining us here today. this is an auspicious ceremony in this beautiful city of san francisco where for the second year in a row now we have been the official first day of issue

city for the lunar new year stamp. i might also add that for out of the six stamps in the series san francisco has been chosen three times to be the official city. we must be doing something right in san francisco. i am honored to represent the postal service. today is an exciting service. we are proud to celebrate our special time with our friends and the asian community. appreciate the beauty of the stamps for them to use in the new year greetings to families and friends and we capture that beauty this year into celebrating the lunar year stamp. the stamp features the firecrackers that scare off evil spirits and renew hope

for the future. the staff is available today at all post offices to help you prepare for the two-year mailings,, greeting cards , party invitations and gifts. we don't have stats available-for-sale at city hall but we do at this table here. we can put the date of issue postmark on them. we have cancellations at lincoln station and also add chinatown for the next 60 days. we are providing the cancellations of those two stations. on behalf of the united states postal service i will like to invite mayor lee and our guests to unveil and dedicate the 2013 lunar new year stamp, year of the snake (chinese). >> i would like to invite representatives from oca and

the chinese benevolent association to join us. (applause)

>> bonnie banks. bonnie banks. my definition of noise is uncontrolled music. without format. pretty simple affair. pancakes, and you're -- people get up on sundays around noon, weekends or whatever. should not be too hard to walk into place. have your audio alarm clock go off for two hours waking your up while you are eating

breakfast with many interesting visuals once in a while. improvisation. listening or not to the person you're playing up against or people or machines. trying to get as many different people in as possible. different genres, experimental noise, electronics, dissonance some drums.a tiny bit of ambient -- the first noise pancake shows, 1999, the first waffle noise, 2001. god-waffle noise, noise pancake came out of cubist art, place

on mission street, brutallo, where the church -- opened up his house and saturday morning cartoons. a big space. you can have everybody set up and barely move equipment around; small room for an audience to move around, walkover and get pancakes without getting burned up in the kitchen. there's like people in their hard-core gabber; people into really fast death metal; black metal. people who don't listen to music at all.

guy like larnie bock (sounds like) set up huge, motor driven harp. i don't know how to explain it. 40 foot of motors that he had running over strings and wires. and then played each string individually with the mixer. there is a feeling of euphoria when somebody's really good at what they do. experiencing a buffer, pushing your bowels out your rear. different. a lot of noise. you don't play clubs with a cleaning schedule, a guy coming in the morning

emptying the beer bottles. you play the warehouse. if you travel around you will see the exact same kind of weirdos doing their own thing. it is like in the bay area it's even more absurd. there seems to be more people that in a place like new york or tokyo. we did a show in new york, i didn't think that anyone was at hardly, and people come up and said i saw the show. i wish they had some kind of breakfast noise going on over there. i think a lot of people were being, walking out of the shows. that was incredible. i can't believe it's over already, after two hours. if